Republican News · Thursday 5 December 2002

Government accused of suppressing documents

BY FERN LANE

The family of Jim Wray, one of the victims of Bloody Sunday, has accused the British government of deliberately suppressing documents concerning Edward Heath, the British prime minister in 1972, because they illuminate Heath's "planning and foreknowledge" of Bloody Sunday.

Heath, who was due to begin giving evidence to the tribunal on Wednesday this week, will not now appear until the New Year, after falling and injuring himself outside Salisbury Cathedral on Sunday.

In a written submission, the Wray family's lawyer, Lord Anthony Gifford, said that the refusal to disclose relevant documents was jeopardising the work of the inquiry and suggested that the contents are potentially "embarrassing for he interests of the government". He has asked Lord Saville to call representatives of the Cabinet Office to appear before the inquiry next week to explain.

The missing documents include briefing papers for a meeting between Heath and Brian Faulkner in the days before Bloody Sunday. Cabinet meeting documents in which the plans for the march on 30 January 1972 were discussed are also missing.

Last week, Major General Michael Steel, assistant to General Patrick McLellan on Bloody Sunday, continued to give evidence to the inquiry. He said that, although he knew at the time that General Ford's plan to arrest up to 400 rioters was, by Ford's own admission, "fatally flawed", he did not think to mention that it was, in the words of Arthur Harvey QC, "literally incapable of implementation" during the planning process. Steele said that he had not said anything because "it was not my position to do so", but added that when he and other officers had written the operation order, Ford's figure was not included in it.

He denied Harvey's assertion that what was actually envisaged by those planning Operation Forecast was the rounding up and arrest of marchers as well as rioters.

The inquiry heard that the army operated what was known as the '25-yard rule'; meaning that, as the chances making arrests, or even identifying individual rioters amongst a crowd of bystanders or marchers, were greatly diminished if they were further than 25 yards away from the arresting forces, they should not be pursued once they were 'out of range'. It was suggested to Steele that Support Company of 1 Para completely ignored this rule as they launched their attack, in vehicles, into Rossville Street. Harvey put it to Steele that "a way of effecting arrests by soldiers who are hyped up waiting to go in, seeing their prey disappear in front of their eyes, intermingling with others, is to shoot them". Steele said he could not comment.

The inquiry also heard that Support Company of 1 Para went through Barrier 12 on the orders of their tactical headquarters, who then told Brigade headquarters that they had gone through the grounds of the Presbyterian church. Harvey suggested to General Steele that "it is extraordinary, is it not, that the people who would have sent them through, who would have known they had gone through barrier 12, are telling you that in fact they have gone through the Presbyterian Church to the south side of William Street?"

Steele told the inquiry that throughout the entire incident when, over the course of six minutes a live shot or baton round was fired every two seconds, he had no idea what Support Company were doing. He said that when they did report to him they provided a list in which they said that 15 targets had been engaged.

Harvey pointed out that, as there were 27 people either shot dead or wounded, they hit two people for every target they engaged and asked: "If the suggestion now is that they hit 27 innocent bystanders by mistake, that is an extraordinary military operation by anyone's standards." Steele replied that when he received the list "I had no idea whether they were innocent or not because against each name there was the description of either being a nailbomber or a gunman."

He said he did not accept that the operation had been "an extraordinarily badly executed plan" and denied that "Colonel Wilford had been given a blank cheque to do whatever he liked".

Throughout his evidence, General Steele continued to assert that there were "nailbombers" present and that a "firefight" had taken place on Bloody Sunday.